


the princess with sunlight in her heart

by ADreamingSongbird



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Curses, Fairy Tale Style, Friends to Lovers, inspired by tarot cards!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:55:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28931343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamingSongbird/pseuds/ADreamingSongbird
Summary: A princess is blessed by the sun on the day of her birth, but claimed by the fae long before that. However, she isn't one to accept fate without a fight.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 17
Kudos: 22





	the princess with sunlight in her heart

**Author's Note:**

> HI AMES ITS ME I WAS YOUR SECRET SANTA (well, not a santa, but like, holiday gifter person? WHAtever)!!!! i tried to shove a bunch of things from your list of Cool Stuff in here, though idk how much i actually succeeded at doing HAHA. one thing i AM proud of though is that i came up with the outline by randomly drawing 7 major arcana cards!!!! and i used those to structure the story along what would have been the fool's journey. however i only know like 3 things about tarot so its very vague. but i thought at least that was a fun detail!!! 
> 
> OKAY ill stop rambling but eee i hope you enjoy this!! ♥

_i. the empress._

It begins, as many tales do, with a king and a queen, and with their love.

For the king and his queen loved each other dearly. The people of the land could see it in every look between them, every smile they exchanged, every single touch of their hands. The king and the queen were always drawn to each other, even fated to meet, it was rumored. Perhaps the fae folk marked them for each other, though for what purpose, none could say.

But in the winter, as a child grew in the queen’s womb, a cold wind came, and it carried with it nothing but woe. The queen fell ill, and despite the royal physicians’ best efforts, her health waned, and waned, a moon on the brink of darkness, and it seemed that the king would lose both her and their child.

In his desperation, the king journeyed west, to the gate at the foot of the mountains, the one rumored to be the single place where worlds meet. He came to beg a favor of the fae.

But the fae do not offer favors.

Instead, the fae offered him a bargain. _A life for a life,_ they whispered, voices too soft for forms made of too many sharp lines and hard edges. _But not your own._

“Whose, then?” the king asked.

_One you love as much as you love your queen,_ they answered. _We will give you time, and a blessing. But when your time runs out, we will claim your child. On her seventeenth birthday, upon the darkest hour of the darkest day, we will come for you._

The king was horrified, but without the help of the fae and their magic, he knew both his wife and his child would die. This way, at least his queen and their child would live, at least for a time. Heartbroken, he accepted.

When he returned home, the queen’s fever broke for the first time in many days, and she felt well enough to leave her bed for a short time. When she smiled at him, even his wounded heart mended, and for a time, he rejoiced.

But all of that is merely a prelude for what was to come. Love, you see, is the beginning, but it is not all there is to this tale.

The princess is born in the spring.

She comes into the world with the break of day, her little voice crying out into the air as rays of sun spill over the horizon and splash over the land, painting it with luminous gold. Her mother sobs in relief and joy, and as the midwife gently cleans the princess and wraps her in a blanket, the king kisses his wife’s hair, and goes to open the window, that they may have some fresh air.

As he does, something extraordinary happens. A sunbeam falls across the young princess’s face, and as she scrunches up her eyes and cries in protest, a gentle breeze blows… and a drop of sunlight is carried with it, falling like a glowing rain onto the princess’s chest, over her small, fragile heart.

For a moment, she glows.

The light fades, then, but the little princess does not lose it in full; her parents exclaim in awe as her mother cradles her to her chest and her father caresses one tiny cheek with a finger. The child in their embrace is _radiant_.

And radiant she remains, through the years. There is always a light in her eyes and a spring in her step; it is whispered that the princess is blessed by the gods, chosen by the spirits, favored by fortune.

She is a bright and beautiful girl, and the land flourishes as if her mere presence is a boon beyond belief. The boughs of all the kingdom’s orchards grow heavy with fruit, and the forests are healthier than they have been in years. The birds sing with more joy than ever before, and the streams run clear and clean.

They say the princess is a gift, a mark of providence, a blessing. Only her parents know the truth: she is cursed.

For as the princess grows, the thought of her seventeenth birthday begins to weigh more and more on her parents. She is eight, and already over half of their time with her is gone. She is twelve, and they love her, and they know she only has five years left. She is sixteen, and the celebration is weighed with sorrow like so many fruits on the bough.

She does not understand. But she will.

And in that understanding… that is where this story really, truly begins.

* * *

_ii. the emperor, reversed._

With heavy hearts, the princess’s parents tell her of her fate one week before she is to turn seventeen. They wish they never had to. They wish they did not have to see the light in her eyes turn to shock, and betrayal, and _fear._

“I am sorry,” her father weeps, holding her close. “My angel, my child, my pride and joy. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.”

The princess quivers in his arms, shaken and thus shaking. She is a child, and she has never known her parents to be fallible, or weak, or helpless. She is a child, and yet adulthood is reaching for her with its thorny grasp, far too quickly for comfort.

“Is there nothing we can do?” she asks, desperate, but the magic of the fae that saved her and her mother before could just as easily snuff them out, and all three of them know this, even as she pleads. The verdant joy of her youth settles into something darker, a flowering vine now laden with thorns.

It coils around her. It reaches for her throat. It turns to gold with the sun, and there is nothing she can do but sit in her gilded cage and wait.

* * *

_iii. the lovers._

In the night, the princess slips from her rooms, too distraught to sleep, for sleep hastens the new day, and each new day marks one day closer to her doom. No one knows, truly, what lies beyond the gate in the woods, but there are whispers.

The whispers whisper about many a tale, some haunting and some tragic, some gory and some heartwrenching. They all whisper one thing in common: The fae are never kind. Not to humans.

And so the princess is afraid.

In the dark, by the light of the pale, treacherous moon, she flits from her rooms to the quarters of the royal alchemist who serves her parents, and then to the smaller room attached at the side. This more humble room belongs to the apprentice of the court alchemist, and it is his company that the princess seeks, in her fear, under the stars.

He wake, at her frantic knocking, and seems bewildered to see her standing there, her dark hair unbraided and flowing loose around her shoulders like a waterfall of inky perfume. Her eyes, by contrast, carry the light of the sun, as always, but that light is clouded by her fear, dimmed by her tears.

“My lady,” the apprentice whispers, and steps back to let her in, just as he always has, even before he learned to call her _my lady_ and she learned to call him _my lord._ When they were young, the world allowed them to wander the gardens hand-in-hand, laughing in the sunlight; now, they are left with tears in the dark.

“I am afraid,” she cries softly, and casting aside the rules of the world, she flings herself into his arms and weeps. He draws her into his embrace, as though he knows how to protect her, as though he can fight off all the inhuman hands grasping for her soul from beyond the door, though he does not yet know they search for her. He is simply her dearest friend, and he is her stalwart bulwark in the night.

“Why are you afraid?” he asks, finally, once her tears dry. If he minds that his shoulder is wet, he shows no sign. “Has something happened? You are worrying me, my lady.”

“Something has happened, yes. Long ago.” The princess looks up from his shoulder, and he does not think, merely acts: he caresses her cheek, and he catches a stray tear upon his finger. In the light of her presence and her grace, it glimmers like crystal. “My mother and I were fading from the world, before I was born. My father bought time from the fae, and… and I am the price.”

“What?!” cries the apprentice, and his eyes fly open wide as the moon in the night sky—oh, that moon. “How? When? What did they tell you?”

The princess, in tears, tells him what she knows: “On my seventeenth birthday, upon the darkest hour of the darkest day, they will come for me. That is what my father has told me.”

Now, the apprentice is a wily boy, and a kind one. He is impetuous and loving, and intelligent and crafty, and he is not one who has ever accepted defeat easily. So he shakes his head, already thinking about how he might defy fate, and holds the princess to his chest again.

“We could run away together,” he suggests. “We could be far, far from here in a week. We have one week until your birthday. They cannot take you if they cannot find you.”

The breath catches in the princess’s throat, and her eyes shine bright with hope when she looks up at him. “You would do that for me?”

There are words, words that do not always need to be spoken to be heard. The apprentice says them without speaking, when he smiles and kisses her forehead, and says them again when he tells her, “My lady, I would do anything for you.”

“Oh,” the princess breathes, and for the first time since her parents told her in the morning, she smiles, and that is how she says those words back to the apprentice, too.

It should be enough.

It will not be.

* * *

_iv. the chariot, reversed._

The king and queen sit together, trying not to grieve what they have not yet lost. The princess sleeps, still, curled up in the bed of the alchemist’s apprentice—he is a sweet boy who came to them at the light of dawn, to tell them where their vanished daughter was, and to promise that he would let no harm come to her. And that he would never do her wrong.

It was a sweet gesture, but unnecessary. The king and queen love him as another child, already. Soon, they fear, he will be the only child they have left.

“There is one thing I have not understood, all of this time,” the queen admits to her husband, as she traces the lines in his palm, and wonders which of them speaks to such weight, such grief. “You know already. We have spoken of it before. I still wish for answers.”

The king is mournful as he watches her fingers in his hand. “I wish I had some for you.”

He does know her query. Why would the fae say the darkest hour of the darkest day, when the princess was born in spring? Winter’s dark days are already behind them.

“I wonder if they simply made a mistake, and now their words do not have to bind us.” The queen laughs, soft, bitter, wistful. “I wish it were that simple.”

“As do I.” The king cannot bring himself even to smile.

By the door, the alchemist’s apprentice stands with wide eyes, wondering now himself, before he quietly steals away to wake the princess. He would run away with her to the ends of the earth, he thinks, but surely there must be something more.

Surely there is something he is missing. There must be a reason for those words.

She is already awake, when he returns to her, and her eyes are dim and sad. Her hand touches his cheek; it is warm.

“We cannot run,” she says, softly, and his heart sinks. “I do not want them to hurt you. I cannot risk it.”

“My lady,” he protests, but he knows the resolute look in her eyes already, and his words die in his mouth, even as his aching heart hardens his resolve.

Surely, he can find a way to save her, to truly save her, so that she does not have to run for the rest of her life. There must be a way. Surely he’ll find it.

Surely.

Surely.

Surely.

* * *

_v. temperance._

By dawn on the day before her seventeenth birthday, the princess has had enough. She won’t run—she cannot risk anyone she loves, and she is frightened of what the fae would do to her mother, or her father, or even her alchemist’s boy, if they are cheated of their due. But surely there is _something_ to be said of the darkest day already being behind them, isn’t there?

So as the sun rises, filling her with warmth and hope, the princess leaves a note for her parents, and one for her love, just in case, and slips from the royal palace. She rides for the misty gate at the foot of the mountains, the morning sun at her back.

The woods are dark and deep, even during midday, and as hours pass and the sun sinks towards the mountains to the west, fear starts to grip at the princess’s heart, a thorny vine wrapped around a blooming rose. But she keeps her head high, and she rides on, until the mist swallows the sun, and she can hardly see the trees around her. Her horse refuses to go further, so she tethers him, and timid but resolute, she creeps further along the stony path.

The gate looms in the gloaming, surrounded by slowly spiraling mist that seems to sigh like the sea. The princess trembles, a child far from home, faced with the terror of meeting her ill fortune.

But the sun is still with her. The light she carries within shines, giving her the courage she needs to put one foot in front of the other, over and over.

She steps through the gate.

The world shifts, blurs and sharpens and _changes._ The woods are the same, but they are not the same—that is the best way to describe it. Perhaps that is the only way to describe it. Shapes cloud the corners of her vision, but when she tries to look at them, they vanish, leaving only a ghost of elegant, cruel laughter.

She wants to cry.

_Little princess,_ someone (everyone) (no one) says. Her skin crawls. _You are here early. Are you so eager to join us?_

“By your own agreement, you cannot take me yet,” the princess answers, and though her voice shakes, her words are steadfast and true. “I come to ask something of you.”

_We do not grant favors,_ says the same voice, a different voice, or perhaps just the wind. Her vision swims. _Do not think to ask us for mercy. There must always be a price._

“What price for knowledge?” she counters, and takes a breath. “I wish to understand your meaning. The darkest hour of the darkest day has already passed. The winter solstice is over, and the days grow long. My birthday is in spring.”

Something akin to laughter like knives ripples through the nothingness surrounding her. The fae are made of hard lines and sharp edges, and yet nothing at all, and they laugh. _You do not understand why the day shall be dark, little princess._

Why the day shall be dark…? It is true. She does not understand.

“Is there anything I can offer you, so that you will leave my family and me alone?” she asks, timid, and the harsh, cruel laughter only grows. She flinches, but she does not stumble.

_You are bold, and you amuse us, little princess,_ says a voice, any number of voices. _Very well. We will take the one you love, instead. That is the new agreement._

“What? No—no! No, please, he has nothing to do with this!” Horrified, the princess cries out in dismay; her beloved alchemist’s apprentice would sacrifice himself for her, and she knows it, but it is the last thing she wants. “You may take me! Please, leave him be.”

_We will not rescind the offer. We shall take him, and you may live, selfish girl._ Another ripple of laughter blows through the trees, and the sun sinks lower. The princess shivers.

“No! This is not what I wanted, please,” she begs, but the fae do not listen, and the wind picks up as they laugh and laugh and laugh, and the tears in her eyes fall and roll down her cheeks.

The wind blows, hard, and she stumbles back, and suddenly she has fallen through the gate again, and she is in her own world, surrounded by mist that is regular and mundane, in the shadow of a looming mountain made of simple rock.

Alone, without even the pale light of the two-faced moon, the princess lowers her head and weeps.

* * *

_vi. the tower._

In the morning, the princess awakens in the dark, dark woods.

The alchemist’s boy does not.

The sun climbs into the sky, but the moon, the pale, faithless moon… the moon follows, nearer and nearer, until the heavens are frozen in a celestial kiss, and the land is dark, dark, _dark._ Dread fills the princess, as she looks at the sky through the mist around her, and realizes: the day itself is dark, and its darkest hour is nigh.

They will take her love. Her love, her dearest friend, her cherished one, who wanted nothing more than to help her. To save her. To protect her.

“This is not what I wanted,” the princess whispers to the mist that coils around her like a lover’s embrace, caressing her with the ghostly hands of an old friend. The sun, her old friend, her golden heart, has disappeared behind the darkened moon, and she has never felt so utterly alone.

He is gone. She can feel it in her heart, knows without knowing. They have taken him, and pulled him beyond the world, and they must already be digging their claws into him, taking his heart away from her to twist it until it breaks. The whispers whisper, and the mist swirls. This is not what she wanted.

But weeping will not solve anything, despite her despair, and there is a warmth in her chest, a strange light that will not go out. She cries, hopeless, but even then she cannot sit still for long, not with this warmth that grows, and grows, and glows.

It is the light of the sun, the drop of sun that has lived in her heart all her life. It calls to her, beckons, twisting, singing. It is a piece of fire and warmth and life that makes her radiant, brings light to her eyes.

_All is not lost,_ it sings in her heart. _All is not lost. You are still here._

She takes a deep breath, and steps through the gate.

The world is too-bright after the dark of her own, and the fae are joyous, celebrating, laughing like knives. They have taken forms of their own, too-long and sinuous and utterly inhuman, and she would be frightened if her heart was not the sun. They have too many joints or too few, and some have wings, and eyes where eyes should not be; they are beautiful, and they are horrific.

And they have her love.

He is alive, at least—he is struggling, and yelling, and as she watches he kicks one of them in the eye-that-should-be-elsewhere. It recoils with a hiss, and for a moment she thinks perhaps he will wrench himself away, and flee into her arms, and they can go home—

Another member of the fae hits him, hard enough to snap his entire head to the side, and for a terrifying, horrific moment, she thinks they have just snapped his neck and killed him before her eyes. But he lifts his head again, glaring, and there is blood on his cheekbone, running down his skin from a cut below his eye.

And the princess…

The princess whose heart is the sun…

The princess has had _enough._

“Let him _go!”_ she cries, and her voice carries sunlight, sunlight that scorches like a desert day, sunlight that burns up the monstrous fae nearest her like iron. “How dare you hurt him!”

The apprentice’s eyes fly wide as he gazes at her, awestruck. She is ablaze, and glowing, and she is _radiant._

“My lady?” he whispers.

The fae move back as though repelled, dropping him to the ground as she approaches him, and she kneels and gathers him into her arms, cradling his head to her chest.

“My love,” she says, her voice soft as a gentle spring day, when the first buds begin to bloom. When her hand caresses his cheek, the bloodied wound begins to close itself, as though the power of life granted by the sun flows through him, and all his bruises and scrapes and exhaustion melt away.

The princess lifts her head, then, and her eyes blaze again as she cradles her love in her arms. The fae whisper among themselves, backing away further.

_What have you done? How have you done this? We took the sun! You should not have it!_ they hiss and snarl, and the princess with the sun in her heart laughs at them.

It is her turn, she thinks. They laughed at her, yesterday. Balance is part of the world.

“I am putting an end to your false bargains and your cruel acts!”

The light gets brighter; the alchemist’s apprentice closes his eyes, his face hidden safely against her shoulder. It is a precaution, but an unnecessary one; she would never harm him, and the sun within her heart knows this.

The light grows, and grows, and glows.

And then there is nothing, and there is silence.

* * *

_vii. the world._

When the light fades, they are in the mundane woods, surrounded by mundane trees. The princess sways, and collapses where she sits, but her love catches her, and holds her, supporting her as she just supported him. His wounds have healed, and his weariness has fallen away; he no longer feels as though he has been struggling for hours.

Above them, the sun shines. The gate is gone. The mist has all burned to nothingness.

“My lady?” The apprentice notices none of it, so concerned with the princess in his arms. “My lady, are you alright? Please—”

The princess stirs with a soft moan, and opens her eyes.

For the first time in her life, they are no longer aglow.

“I am fine,” she promises, and cups his cheek, tender. “Are you?”

“I feel wonderful,” he promises her in turn, leaning into her touch. She smiles at him, and he smiles back, but then looks troubled. “Your eyes… your magic, has it left you?”

The princess’s smile does not falter. “It has. But I am alright with that.” She strokes his cheek, where the wound has already sealed itself into a hardly-visible scar. “I have no need for it now, and I would sacrifice it a hundred times over to save you. It was my fault you were dragged into this at all.”

“I would let myself be, a hundred times over. I wanted to save you,” he admits, and laughs.

She laughs, too, and then gently pulls away from him, to get to her feet. Leaves cling to her skirt as she dusts herself off, and she cannot help but marvel at how simple and normal the world around them looks, with no gate to the realm of the fae anymore.

“Come,” she tells him, and offers her hand. “Let’s return home. We have some news to give to my parents, I think.”

He takes her hand, and they set off for their home together. And as he looks at her, normal and mundane and no longer glowing with the light of the sun, he thinks to himself that she has never been more beautiful.


End file.
